DIN-ECO seminars to support academic and non-academic staff in terms of innovation and technology transfer
Supporting KIC's
Domain: Domain 1 – Fostering institutional engagement and change, Domain 5 – Knowledge sharing (Collect and share Success Stories and Lessons).
Action: Set up or improve organizational units and/or entities, such as technology transfer offices (TTOs), to develop collaborations for technology transfer
DIN-ECO seminars to support academic and non-academic staff in terms of innovation and technology transfer.
In the framework of the DIN-ECO project, in order to increase awareness on research commercialization, the consortium has developed and adopted best practices in order to design specialized training seminars for academics and non-academics so that they acquire the basic knowledge and skills related to innovation and the exploitation of the research results, the protection of intellectual property, and the establishment of spin-offs. A series of seminars was designed for training, along with mentoring sessions, to be delivered to academics and non-academics, online.
Seminars for academics
- Technology transfer: Understanding and establishing framework conditions (12 h)
- Understanding the main processes, activities and decision points. (University of Bologna)
- Learn about intellectual property rights, patents and IP policy. (Ionian University)
- Explore commercialization strategies. (University of Nis)
- Research commercialization strategies (8 h)
- Methods for identifying commercialization opportunities. (Ionian University)
- Understanding of licencing route to commercialization. (University of Nis)
- Understanding the rationale for selection spinoff/startup preferred route to market. (Warsaw University for Life Sciences)
- Contract research (University of Nis).
- Advisory services. (FOUND.ATION)
- Effective communication and negotiation skills (4 h)
- Develop skills for presenting research to potential industry partners. (Fondazione Fenice)
- Learn negotiation techniques for licensing agreements. (FOUND.ATION)
- Improve interpersonal and networking skills. (Ionian University)
For non-academics :
- Understanding academic research and collaboration (4 h)
- Gain insights into the academic research process. (University of Bologna)
- Learn how to identify and engage with universities and researchers. (Mugla Sitki Kocman University)
- Understand the benefits of collaboration with academia. (AB Institute of Entrepreneurship Development)
- Intellectual property and licensing (4 h)
- Explore intellectual property rights and their significance. (Ionian University)
- Understand the technology transfer process, including licensing and royalties. (Ionian University)
- Learn how to negotiate and draft licensing agreements. (Fondazione Fenice)
- Building successful industry-academia partnerships (4 h)
- Develop strategies for effective collaboration with academic institutions (FOUND.ATION, A.B. iED).
- Identify funding opportunities and research partnerships (FOUND.ATION, A.B. iED).
Context
The knowledge and know-how of the personnel of the TTOs is one of the most important dimensions for improving TTOs structure and outcomes. Towards this, the proposed seminars provide to the personnel of the TTOs useful knowledge for the everyday operation. The seminars have been designed to be delivered by a multidisciplinary team of Universities and companies.
Audiences
Academic staff, working in the area of technology transfer, members of technology transfer offices.
Non-academic staff working in technology transfer offices, Researchers/PhD candidates working in the area of technology transfer/innovation capacity.
Key outcomes
The audience that participated in the first part of the seminars for academics and non-academics were in total 86 people, 65 academics and 21 non-academics, from all participating partners of the consortium. The first seminars took place during December 2023. The seminars for the academic staff were focused on Technology transfer: Understanding and establishing framework conditions, and specifically (i) Understanding the main processes, activities and decision points, (ii) Learn about intellectual property rights, patents and IP policy and (iii) Explore commercialization strategies. For the non-academics, the first seminars focused on Understanding academic research and collaboration and specifically (i) Gain insights into the academic research process, (ii) Learn how to identify and engage with universities and researchers and (iii) Understand the benefits of collaboration with academia.
Coaching and mentoring sessions took place also, each time with the personnel of one Technology Transfer Office of the consortium HEI partners, aiming to improve the indicators and performance of each TTO, in a TTO-specific manner.
Key success factors / How to replicate / Sustainability mechanism
The key factor for the seminars to succeed is a team of Universities and companies to deliver the seminars, each presenting subjects relevant to their field of expertise. Also, the engagement of the relevant people (academic and non-academic staff, personnel of the TTOs). The potential organizer should disseminate the seminars in advance and perform targeted discussions with the relevant audience in their University, in order to maximized participation from the relevant people.
Key factor for sustainability and transferability is the availability of the material (presentations, notes, case studies etc) in a relevant workspace to the interested personnel as well as the availability of the recorded seminars. Moreover, the availability of the organizers of the seminars for discussions from the personnel of the TTOs or other interested audiences.
For those that would like to replicate this practice at their institution, we would propose to invent in people engagement first, so that the outcomes have maximum reach. Regarding the content, this could change per University, depending on the status of ths University in technology transfer, the needs of the University, the existence of spin-off companies etc.